Chainsaw thief attacks Louis XIV’s elephant

A security guard at the Natural History Museum in Paris with the elephant skeleton whose tusk was chopped off by a thief.
Photo: AFP

by
Henry Samuel

Paris | More than 300 years after its death, a pet elephant that once belonged to King Louis XIV has been attacked by a would-be ivory poacher.

A 20-year-old man allegedly broke into the Museum of Natural History in Paris and attacked the elephant’s skeleton with a chainsaw, hacking off its left tusk. He has been detained but not identified.

Neighbours alerted police after being roused by the sound of a chainsaw at 3am. The museum’s alarm also went off after the thief had climbed ­railings and smashed a thick window to enter. Within minutes, officers caught a man carrying the tusk over his shoulder. He had a fractured ankle apparently after jumping from a wall. They found the chainsaw still whirring in the museum.

The African elephant, whose skeleton stands in the anatomy gallery of the museum in the Jardin des Plantes, was given to the Sun King by the king of Portugal in 1668. It lived in the zoo of Versailles Palace until its death in 1681.

It is not known if the thief intended to sell the ivory on the black market. The international trade in elephant ivory has been banned since 1990.

Jacques Cuisin, from the museum’s restoration workshops, said he had not ruled out the possibility that it was an act of a “deranged individual".

The ancient elephant’s tusks are not from the original animal – they were added to its skeleton in the 19th century – but are still of significant historical and scientific value.

Mr Cuisin said it should be possible to refit the tusk. “The skull is in excellent condition, which means repairing it will be quite easy," he said.